December 14, 2010

• Christmas Trees

  (Click any thumbnail to enlarge)

  Trees and their boughs and branches, especially evergreens, have had symbolic significance for people since prehistory.

  Ancient Egyptians celebrating the winter solstice, the shortest, darkest day of the year, when the sun begins its annual return, brought green date palms into their homes as a symbol of life triumphant over death.

  Celtic Druids revered evergreens as manifestations of deity because they did not “die” from year to year but stayed green and alive when other plants appeared dead and bare. Conifers and sprigs of evergreen holly in the house represented everlasting life and hope for the return of spring. 

  Ancient Romans decorated their homes with greens at the Festival of Saturnalia, their New Year, and exchanged evergreen branches with friends as a sign of good luck.  Part of the ceremony in the Temple of Saturn was the raising of an evergreen bough.

  Norse pagans attached significance to plants that remained green under winter snows.  To the Norsemen, they symbolized the annual revival of the sun god Baldur.  Branches of evergreens placed over the door kept out witches, ghosts, evil spirits and the like.

  The fir tree has a long association with Christianity, starting in Germany ca.675–754 C.E.  St. Boniface, an English missionary monk who converted the German people to Christianity, was said to have come across a group of pagans worshiping an oak tree. He is said to have cut down the oak tree in righteous rage.  To his amazement a young fir tree sprang up from the roots of the sacred oak. Boniface took this as a sign of the Christian faith supplanting older pagan beliefs.

  During Advent in the eleventh century, scenes called mysteries, including one about Paradise, were very popular. A tree decorated with red apples symbolized the tree of Paradise.  The Dark Ages, Middle Ages and Renaissance across Northern Europe saw the evolution of elves and pagan gods into the Father Christmas/Santa Claus figure, and he was always associated with evergreens.   During the fifteenth century, the faithful began to put up trees in their own houses on December 24, the feast day of Adam and Eve.

  Many sources agree that the earliest historically documented Christmas or New Years tree was in Riga, Latvia in 1510.  Little is known about the original Riga tree other than that it was decorated with paper flowers, attended by men wearing black hats, and after a ceremony in the Town Hall Square, they burnt the tree on a bonfire. This was a mixture of pagan and Christian custom, as were very many of the customs in Central/Northern Europe at that time.  Later in the 16th century, fir trees were brought indoors at Christmas time.  As one story goes, Martin Luther, on a solitary walk in the woods, was struck by the beauty of snow-laden firs in the moonlight.  Back at home, he took in a small tree and lit it with candles for the benefit of his children.

  The first Christmas tree as we know it, but without lights still, appeared in Alsace, in the city of Selestat, in 1521.  Decorated trees were introduced in France by the Princess Hélène de Mecklembourg who brought one to Paris after her marriage to the Duke of Orleans.  In the eighteenth century, the custom of decorating a Christmas tree was well established in Germany, France and Austria.

  Using small candles to light up the Christmas tree dates back to the middle of the seventeenth century.  Until about 1700, the use of Christmas trees appears to have been confined to the Rhine River District.  From 1700 on, when candles were accepted as part of the decorations, the Christmas tree was well on its way to becoming a tradition in Germany.  The first candles were glued with wax or pinned to the end of the tree branches.  Little lanterns and small candleholders (some with counterweights like the one pictured here) then appeared to make putting up the tapers easier.

  The custom was only really firmly established, however, at the beginning of the nineteenth century in Germany and soon after in the Slavic countries of Eastern Europe.  Candle holders with clips appeared around 1890.  Glass balls and lanterns were created between 1902 and 1914.

  The Christmas tree tradition most likely came to the United States with Hessian troops during the American Revolution, or with early German immigrants to Pennsylvania and Ohio.  A celebration around a Christmas tree on a bitter cold Christmas Eve at Trenton, New Jersey, might have turned the tide for Colonial forces in 1776.  According to legend, Hessian mercenaries were so reminded of home by a candlelit evergreen tree that they abandoned their posts to eat, drink and be merry. Washington attacked that night and defeated them.

  Christmas trees were popularized in England and Western Europe after 1846 when Victoria and Albert were pictured in the Illustrated London News with their children, standing around a Christmas tree.  The Victorian fashion caught on gradually in the U.S., but not without some impediments.  The Puritans had totally banned Christmas in New England.  Even as late as 1851, a minister in Cleveland, Ohio nearly lost his job because he allowed a tree in his church.  Schools in Boston stayed open on Christmas Day through 1870, and sometimes expelled students who stayed home.

  In 1851, Catskill farmer Mark Carr hauled two ox sleds of evergreens into New York City and sold them all, originating the commercial Christmas tree market in this country.  By 1900, one in five American families had a Christmas tree, and 20 years later, the custom was nearly universal.

  The first time a Christmas tree was lit by electricity was in 1882 in New York. Edward Johnson, who did various work for Thomas Edison, lit a Christmas tree with a string of 80 small electric light bulbs which he had made himself. These strings of lights began to be produced commercially around 1890. One of the first electrically lit Christmas trees was erected in Westmount, Quebec in 1896. In 1900, some large stores put up large illuminated trees to attract customers.

  Once begun, the custom spread in Canada wherever electricity came to towns and the countryside. Because of the risk of fire, trees lit with candles had not usually been put up until December 24. This technical innovation altered the custom since it was then possible to put the tree up earlier and leave it up longer.  Early electric tree decorations were not limited to lights.  Intermittent electromagnetic fields powered moving toys and ringing bells.  Now, the move is away from anything that produces electromagnetic fields or static electricity that interfere with electronic comunications.  [Do click the shot at right above to get a look at the happy faces on those kids.]

  With 3,000 Christmas lights, a towering Eucalyptus regnans, 80 meters (262 ft) tall, became the tallest-ever Christmas tree in the world. This record was set in Tasmania in 1999.

  Contrasting fads and fashions in tree decorations are reflected in these two shots.  The children at right above are posed by an early twentieth century tree loaded down with a more or less regular and symmetrical arrangement of glass balls.  The woman at left is posing before a spare and randomly trimmed post-depression tree of the 1930s or ’40s.

  Christmas tree farms were an offshoot of the Great Depression. Nurserymen couldn’t sell their evergreens for landscaping, so they cut them for Christmas trees. Cultivated trees were preferred because they have a more symmetrical shape than wild ones.  That preference held until the 1950s when, in the era of aluminum and plastic, artificial trees gained popularity.

  Some manufacturers of artificial trees tried to make them as close in appearance to real trees as possible.  Their advertisements stressed the economy of a permanent tree that could be stored away with the decorations from one year to the next.  They also made reference to the safety and convenience of a reusable tree that would not catch fire or drop needles on the carpet.

  Designers of artificial trees in the twenty-first century are appealing to customers’ sense of style and ecological consciousness.  The plywood trees designed by Buro North of Australia are purportedly 80% more Earth-friendly than a traditional tree.  To me, these trees look like they might find many approving customers in New York or Hollywood, but they are not quite traditional enough for the official holiday decor in Washington, DC.

  Eighty-seven years ago, President Calvin Coolidge lit the first national Christmas tree.  Thirty-two years ago, the National Park Service searched out a healthy Colorado blue spruce and transplanted it from York, Pennsylvania to the Ellipse by the White House.   For 2008, General Electric donated new LED Christmas lights to all fifty states and the National Park Service.  The lighting on the National Christmas Tree (right, above) for 2008, was the most energy-efficient and Earth-friendly one ever.   On the tree’s website, you can decorate your own virtual tree.

  Each year, competition among members of the National Christmas Tree Association determines who will have the privilege of donating a tree for the Blue Room of the White House.  The 2008 Blue Room tree shown at left was a Fraser fir from Creston, NC.  For 2010, the Blue Room tree is a Douglas fir from Lehighton, PA.  The resource expenditure, hoopla, and publicity surrounding the National Christmas Trees are seen by some non-Christians as a clear violation of the principle of separation of church and state, and the observance is viewed by some fundamentalist Christians as a pagan travesty.

  Nevertheless, the tradition continues.  Each year’s White House decorations follow a theme.  The theme for 2010 is, “Simple Gifts.”  Ornaments on a theme of “Red, White and Blue Christmas,” for the Blue Room tree of 2008, were created by artists chosen for the honor by various members of Congress.  There are two ornaments from Alaska (one of which appears below), and a dozen or so from California.

  Many of the artists departed markedly from the colors of the theme.  One of Hawaii’s contributions was covered with orange feathers, and one from California was metallic gold.  I didn’t take the time to examine all of them, but you may if you like.  Personally, I think there might be more practical uses for all the time and resources spent on this glitz and glitter, but in theory, what with my being an American citizen, these are my Christmas trees and I intend to enjoy them.  I truly did, in a simple-minded way, enjoy the interactive virtual tree trimming.

  As far back as I can remember, I enjoyed trimming the tree.  My parents allowed me to hang ornaments and drape tinsel on the lower branches within my reach.  Some years during my youth and young adulthood, for various reasons, there was no tree.  I had re-established the practice after I moved to Alaska, and interrupted it when the house became the territory of a wild animal:  my son, Doug, with ADHD.  After he got old enough not to be dangerous around a tree, we would cut one and decorate it each year, but that was while we lived off the grid, and he had never had a lighted tree before we moved in here, and no tree at all our first few years in this house.

  Doug and I made plans to have a tree in 2004.  It was to have been our first Christmas tree since Greyfox moved up here in 1991.  The Old Fart had always discouraged Christmas decorations, and we never fought it.  After old Scrooge McGreyfox moved out, being on the power grid at last, we were going to decorate.  In the summer of 2004, the vandals at Elvenhurst, our old home across the highway, dragged out and scattered some of our Christmas decorations, and I picked them up and brought them over here.   Before snow fell, Doug scouted out some nice young spruce trees and made note of their locations so he could go back and cut one later.

  As the time for cutting the tree grew nearer, the snow grew deeper in the cul de sac where the best of the trees are located.  When Greyfox asked us to bring in our only string of white lights for him to decorate his porch, that threw a small kink in the plan.  When I realized that we didn’t have a stand for the tree, and that we’d had no experience of how these cats might interact with one, and that Koji has never been around an indoor tree….  Well, Doug and I talked it over and decided the tree would be risky and more trouble than it’s worth.

  In 2005, our Christmas tree discussion was brief and conclusive.  There were eight cats in the house, half of them uninhibited kittens.  I contented myself with photos like the close-up above right and the shot above left, of my tree and ornament collection, taken in 1979, before Doug was born and before his father Charley and I moved off the power grid.  In 2006, I decided that a tree would have been more absurd than in ’04 and ’05.  The cat population was up around a dozen by then, and three of them were high-climbing rambunctious kittens.  In ’07, I was fresh out of the hospital at Christmas and no tree was even discussed.

  In 2008, it looked sorta like we had a tree, but it was really just a hanging ivy plant wound ’round with a string of white lights.  It remained decorated through Christmas of 2009, hung with a choice selection from my vast collection of antique glass ornaments, corn shuck dolls and toy forms, spiced up with some geekish high-tech new things, and lighted by tiny white mini-lights.  If I’d had my druthers, I’d have had some of the old-style “bubble candle” lights that have come back onto the market recently.  They are part of the fond childhood memories for both Greyfox and me.

  When I finally got around to removing the decorations last spring, my ivy plant was much diminished.   If I decorate this year, I’ll probably just string lights around a macrame hanger, with a wide round basket in the bottom to give it the conical shape.  I really don’t have space for it in the window, however, because my philodendron has grown like the Monstera deliciosa it is, and takes up three times as much space in the front window as it did two years ago.  I’ll probably just hang a wreath on the cabin door and let it go at that.

  Stealing from one source is plagiarism; from many sources, it is research.  I researched far and wide over a period of several years for this material, and my countdown to Christmas is just getting started.

  

  

  

  

  • 9:30 pm
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